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About Island People

This masterwork of travel literature and history provides a kaleidoscopic portrait of the Caribbean and illuminates its fierce grip on the world’s imagination.

From the moment Columbus gazed out from the deck of the Santa María in 1492 at what he mistook for an island off Asia, the Caribbean has been subjected to the misunderstandings and fantasies of outsiders. Forged by more than three centuries of mass migration and slave labor, the region and its diverse peoples have helped shape the modern world—through politics, religion, economics, music, and culture. Joshua Jelly-Schapiro takes us from Cuba to Jamaica, Puerto Rico to Trinidad, Haiti to Barbados, chronicling with wit and keen insight this “place where globalization began.”

About Island People

A masterwork of travel literature and of history: voyaging from Cuba to Jamaica, Puerto Rico to Trinidad, Haiti to Barbados, and islands in between, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of each society, its culture and politics, connecting this region’s common heritage to its fierce grip on the world’s imagination.

From the moment Columbus gazed out from the Santa María‘s deck in 1492 at what he mistook for an island off Asia, the Caribbean has been subjected to the misunderstandings and fantasies of outsiders. Running roughshod over the place, they have viewed these islands and their inhabitants as exotic allure to be consumed or conquered. The Caribbean stood at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for more than three hundred years, with societies shaped by mass migrations and forced labor. But its people, scattered across a vast archipelago and separated by the languages of their colonizers, have nonetheless together helped make the modern world—its politics, religion, economics, music, and culture. Jelly-Schapiro gives a sweeping account of how these islands’ inhabitants have searched and fought for better lives. With wit and erudition, he chronicles this “place where globalization began,” and introduces us to its forty million people who continue to decisively shape our world.

About Joshua Jelly-Schapiro

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer and writer whose work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, New York, Harper’s, the Believer, Artforum, and The Nation, among many other publications. He is the author of Island People: The Carribbean and the World, the co-editor (with Rebecca… More about Joshua Jelly-Schapiro

About Joshua Jelly-Schapiro

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer and writer whose work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, New York, Harper’s, the Believer, Artforum, and The Nation, among many other publications. He is the author of Island People: The Carribbean and the World, the co-editor (with Rebecca… More about Joshua Jelly-Schapiro

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Praise

“A travelogue of love and scholarship. . . . [It] does the region splendid justice.” —The New York Times

“Many have tried this before—to get hold of, in its entirety, the volatile, beautiful, relentlessly shifting Caribbean. Nobody has succeeded as dazzlingly.” —Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

“Joshua Jelly-Schapiro possesses both a humanist’s irrepressible empathy and a journalist’s necessary skepticism. He reports carefully, researches exhaustively, cares deeply, and writes beautifully.”—Dave Eggers, author of Heroes of the Frontier

“Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s grand book on the Caribbean is so striking in form and vision that it amounts to something new—a constant surprise.”—Hilton Als, author of White Girls“Written with passion and joyful music in the prose, Island People will become an indispensable companion for anybody traveling to the Caribbean—or dreaming of doing so.”—Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found